In Mente Est
by Xern's girl
Summary: Raoul and Christine are still in shock after the events at the opera house, though it is two months later. Raoul, hoping to rid his bride to be of the Phantom, takes her to a psychiatrist. There, however, they find more than advice...
1. Pars Unum

One

"Is she going to be all right?" the nervous young man asked as he was met in the waiting room. The doctor was shaking with age and nodding slightly, but the Chagny family had been visiting Dr. Sanis for two generations, and were not about to question his skills in medicine. Psychiatry was a different story.

"As far as I am concerned, your fiancé does not belong here. I am referring you to an associate of mine, Dr. Verain." The wizened hand scribbled down a note and placed it in the Vicomte's youthful one. "Give this to Jacques Verain and he will treat your fiancé."

The young woman followed her husband to be out of the small medical office and into a chaise parked just outside. They would visit the psychiatrist tomorrow, but for now they would sup. Christine would return to her shadowy bedroom, confused and cold; Raoul would return to his master chamber with a nightcap and the newspaper and fail to sleep due to the fear which rose at every creaking board and sighing wind.

The next day brought a crisp yellow sunshine and a moist air to the pair's travel back into the city. Dr. Verain's office was across town from the wreckage which weeks ago had been the Opera Populaire, but had it been any closer Raoul may have reconsidered the visit. _This is for Christine. She has experienced a great trauma, she gave her mind to the Phantom and he never gave it back. _The door to the office was a dark violet interrupted by patches of pine where the paint had worn away. The place was a little worn, but not uninviting. They walked in.

"Is there any way I could be of service to you?" a young man asked from the desk. He was clearly no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, possibly an apprentice or a ward of the doctor's. He stood up to take their coats and direct them towards a pair of slightly under-stuffed armchairs opposite.

"Yes," Raoul began, removing the note from his vest pocket, "Dr. Sanis recommended this office. I don't know if Dr. Verain has an appointment with us--"

"Dr. Verain is not in. He has been in the hospital for the last few days with a bronchial irritation. He was at the opera when it…well…"

"I see."

"But his associate is here, Dr. Rubis. I can tell him you are here, and he can arrange an appointment with Dr. Verain after his recovery."

"Is this Rubis fellow a competent psychiatrist?" Raoul asked. The apprentice gave him a puzzled look. "You see, I am very anxious for my fiancé to get some attention and soon. Is Dr. Rubis available at the moment?"

"I believe so, Monsieur. Let me ask if he has time for a session." The youth adjourned to the hall and knocked on a door before leaning his head in. Raoul rocked backward and forward nervously on his heels.

"He is available Monsieur. Is the patient here?" Raoul took Christine's hand and led her toward the hall. He was about to follow her into the room when the young man held him back. "I'm sorry Monsieur, but the sessions are conducted privately between doctor and patient."

The door closed behind Christine and Raoul was left outside to pace and bite his fingernails.

The thudding of the door seemed to encompass an eternity in Christine's mind. Between the time when the first sound waves of the closing door bounded toward her ears and when the lock clicked behind her, a tumult of thoughts came whizzing through her head. _Am I really crazy? Wasn't he there? I could feel Erik's flesh beneath my lips, I could hear his voice whispering to me as though he were standing right behind me. Raoul insists that Erik does not exist, that he is just a manifestation of my lost father. Would Raoul lie to me? Would I lie to myself?_

"Come closer, my child." There was a man sitting in the chair which faced the window. Christine did not come closer.

She knew that voice, that voice which haunted her nightmares and softened her dreams. That voice which reached within the bowels of her soul, which tugged at her heartstrings and ripped at her mind had returned like a snake to slither into her ear. _Oh, do not torture me! If this voice is indeed only in my mind, then I shall kill it now! Why...why..._

He had stood up. Indeed, Erik had grown thin over the last few weeks, indeed he was not so strong in appearance as he had been when he had dragged her down to his hellish cave beneath the opera house, but he was still Erik. His face was no longer concealed by a mask, but now by a thin tannish powder, as of the foundation used by the players of the opera. He was not half as ugly in form now, but the old manic smile glimmered in his eyes. Christine took a step toward him and then withdrew to the door. _Locked._

"I know you, Christine," he began, stepping past the desk, "I know you. You belong here, a woman of two minds. Your mind is a chessboard and a game is played over your heart between the ebony pieces, my minions, and the white pieces of your little vicomte." He moved still closer, and though they were still separated by some hideous upholstery and a few feet of worn carpet, he seemed to tower over her. Christine shrunk in response. "I know you more than you know yourself. I know that a war rages between your passion and your innocence and that it will take a great effort for either to win over. I could have ripped your innocence from you that first night, the first time you really heard…" Erik took another step closer. He was whispering now. "And your passion would have been mine."

"Erik… Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Christine was trembling, nearly crying. She hoped to God that she would not cry in front of him, that she would not crumble in his grasp.

"Why?" a less controlled, a less desperate man would have been angry. "Christine I love you. I love your innocence _and _your passion. I just wanted to give you a chance to see-- to see that my soul has bloomed as beautiful as your voice, though late, and that all distortion has healed."

"Erik… I'm engaged to be married. What do you want me to do? Tell you that I could never love you more? That I almost died at the thought that you had killed yourself-- or worse, that you had never existed? Do you want me to tell you that I wish I could live both lives at once? But no one could ever settle for half!"

"You're wrong, Christine. I am very happy to settle for half," Erik was now standing close enough to touch her, but she beat him to it. She grabbed his hand in her own and kissed it. Erik looked to the stars that no one could see save himself and thought, _I will settle for half until her war is over… and then I will know the truth…_

Christine raised her head to meet his lips but he turned his head away. She would come to know what it was like to be denied, so in her depravation she would appreciate his love ever more. She paused for a moment before brushing her lips against his cheek, the untainted flesh which taunted his imperfect half. His flesh was cold, colder than it had been when she had kissed him by the lake, but for her the warmth of his heart beat beneath every corner of his skin. And as the French say goodbye, Erik returned to the chair facing the window.

She was about to leave when she turned and asked him to unlock the door.

"Christine," he smiled, "You know perfectly well that the door was never locked."


	2. Pars Duo

Pars Duo

Raoul was exhausted from pacing for the last three quarters of an hour, but all fatigue was forgotten when Christine re-entered the hall. He so wanted to ask her what the doctor had said, he so wanted to know that she would recover soon from the Phantom's influence. If Christine believed Erik did not exist, then Erik would cease to exist. Raoul hoped that Christine would be able to give him up with the help of the psychiatrist, and perhaps some additional shock treatment, for she had been incapable of leaving the thought of Erik behind. The vicomte knew that this was cruel, that this was an underhanded trick worthy of the fiend himself, but Erik had not been playing by the conventional rules of Victorian courtship, and so neither would he. Christine's face was stone. Stone grey, stone cold, still as stone….

"Well," Raoul began, taking the hand of his troubled love, "Well." _What else can I say? What else can I do?_

The pair of young lovers returned to the Maison de Chagny and dined lightly on soup and wine. The long mahogany table which separated them seemed to explain the distance between their two minds: Raoul's was in the bedroom, Christine's was still in the office of Dr. Rubis. How thoroughly confused they all were! How frazzled and weary they were of the mysteries and twists! Raoul would have given everything down to his left hand to just live the end of his days with Christine, a simple life. Christine would have given everything down to her eyes to live alone by the sea. And Erik? Well, where was Erik?

Erik had removed himself from the charred remains of the Opera Populaire and now resided in a flat just above his office. Erik would have given his voice and his mind to bring Christine there, so she could sing and love him until the day they died together. Erik knew that was the way it must be in the end. Neither one of them could live without the other; even if that other were on the opposite side of the earth, their hearts could faintly beat, but death is a chasm unsurpassable even by time itself. Erik knew that if he had killed himself that day he left the Persian's room, Christine would have died with him and, though she may not have known it, her heart would have stopped beating just for him. Erik had given her a second chance.

_Oh, how vile this furniture is. I should cry for shame had not Christine stolen all of my tears!_ He settled to change it at once, to use the greater part of his assets, money stolen from the owners of the very opera house he had destroyed, for the good of his new cage, his domain. _True, it does not have the same allure of the cave, but at least it's dry._ There was a slight dripping as rain crawled in through a thin crack in the ceiling. _Well, mostly dry._ Erik had not eaten in three days, but he was not hungry for sustenance. He was hungry for Christine's company, her smell, her voice, her soul… He had refrained from kissing her in the office, though how sorely he had desired to do so, his very heart whipping his insides with the insanity of lust, because by refraining he had put a hook on the line and was waiting to reel in his prey.

Christine awoke in the early morning to the sound of the sunlight sneaking beneath the window curtains. She was comfortably warm, though her throat felt heavy and strained. It was approaching summer in Paris, and she had again slept with her mouth open. _Not good for a singer's voice, not good for any voice, really. _She wrapped a cotton dressing gown, blooming with a rose and violet pattern, around her before gliding down the stairs for her morning cup of tea. Normally it would be considered most improper for a woman to live in her lover's house, but Christine's situation was a peculiar one. Mother dead since before she could remember, father gone for more than a decade, Christine had turned to the Opera House for shelter and guidance; but now her sanctuary had burned to the ground and all that was left there was a bad memory. Raoul had managed to disguise Christine's stay as a charity offered to a traumatized little girl, and with all that they had endured no one had the heart to gossip. Christine enjoyed the luxury, but she would have preferred to do things according to the etiquette books she had perused, but never actually bothered to read. At least, that was the petty excuse she raised to her husband to be when he offered her his house. Truth be told, she enjoyed being alone.

Raoul was already sitting at his end of the table. It is funny that the couple, who having just settled into the house after the death of Raoul's brother, had already tacitly decided which end of the table belonged to whom. Raoul's side was closer to the sideboard and the servant's bell, Christine's was directly in front of the fireplace. Both had a good view of the window which occupied the length of one wall. Raoul sometimes thought of rearranging the room so as to put Christine in front of the window, so that she would have nothing to look at except his face. _Or the table._ Christine was avoiding his eyes unintentionally, staring into the white linen tablecloth as she sipped her tea. _Look at me. Look at me!_ He willed her eyes to meet his, but she only found his gaze for a second before staring again into her tea leaves. _Goddammit! Look at me! Tell me what the doctor said, tell me what you're thinking about._ Raoul ruffled his paper and turned the page, leaning away from his half eaten eggs and toast. _She's thinking about him, isn't she._ And there it was, a small article edging the far right side of the page with a thin headline: Opera Ghost Found Dead. Raoul looked up to see Christine's reaction but realized that she had not seen it yet. He skimmed it, catching on important words like 'hanged', 'alone', 'daroga', and 'no funeral'. He was relieved that at last it was over, that he would not have to carry on with the doctors for long. Christine would have to let go.

"Christine," he said, clearing his throat slightly, "Will you be ready to leave for your appointment at eleven o'clock. We can dine in town for lunch today."

"Yes." Not 'yes, dear', not 'yes, love', not even 'yes, Raoul'. Just 'yes'.

Raoul paused.

"And before we go, you might want to look at the paper. It may help you sort through the… ordeal. It appears you were right after all." He handed her the paper. She skimmed it and left the room quietly, her tea lukewarm and unfinished on the table.

She was ready at ten. A ribbon encouraged her hair to withdraw from her face and a grey silk frock was buttoned up to her neck. She sat on the edge of her bed, digesting the information which she had imbibed with her tea this morning. _Dead. I saw him yesterday and now he's dead? Dead. Perhaps I imagined that Erik was there in that office. Could I have dreamed up all that? Could I really be that hopeless? Dead. Dead…_

An hour of pouring over the news did not further the clarity of her situation, and even when she stepped out of the chaise in front of Dr. Verain's office, she was still numb with shock. Raoul kissed her on the cheek before continuing on to run some errands, to talk to the minister and to the florists. Christine entered.

"Is Dr. Rubis in today?" she asked, begging for the answer she wanted to hear.

"We haven't heard from him all morning, mademoiselle, but I'm sure he will be in soon." The boy looked her over before leading her into the office. The door clicked, but this time it was overpowered by the sound of light classical music flowing in through the phonograph. She took a step in and sat on one of the under-stuffed leather armchairs, collapsing into it with her tears and her anger and her sorrow.

"Don't cry." A whisper behind her. His whisper.

She sat up and whirled around. "Erik? Erik, you're alive? But why the article, why the lie? Oh Erik!" She ran to him and hugged him about the waist, pressing her hot wet face upon his jacket.

"I'm afraid, Christine, that I can not quarry the blame for that article. The Persian, upon hearing of my suffering, offered to exchange his life for mine. I tried to stop him but… he hanged himself in that cave last night. There was nothing I could do." Erik unlatched Christine and removed his jacket. "I must confess that I delayed my return to the office so I could best observe your reaction upon my entrance. Forgive me this cheap trick."

"I'll forgive you anything, Erik. Anything at all." She was still crying in front of him, wringing her hands in the absence of his embrace.

_Anything?_

He returned to the space behind his desk. "Christine, I want you to tell me about everything you've been doing since you left me two months ago. Just details."

"But haven't you been watching me? Don't you know?" She was taken aback by his sudden withdrawal from omniscience.

"I'm sorry, dearest angel, but I have been arranging for a new life. I work here now, listen to people's problems during the day. At night, I work for the very newspaper which published that bit of fiction this morning. I am now an art critic."

"You were always an art critic." Christine smiled. Was this perhaps the first time she had smiled at him in such a friendly way? All of her smiles had been saved for Raoul, or for the uncontrolled pleasures she received when struck by Erik's voice. Erik had never asked for her smiles, and now seeing her pearled teeth sent a warm shiver up his spine and he smiled back.

"So," he said, raising his eyes to hers again.

"I have not been singing. The Opera Majestique has not reviewed my application for a position as a ballerina. I must be too much trouble." She looked at him again to see his reaction to this statement, but there was only a nod to answer her. "So, Raoul and I have kept to ourselves, mostly. He doesn't like me leaving the house often. I think he's afraid I might… I may try to…"

"Find me?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, Christine, why did Raoul bring you here?"

"He said you didn't exist." She seemed to skitter behind the desk, leaving him with no place for escape. "That I was alone the night the opera house burned down, he said… Why would Raoul lie to me? He was there! Why--"

"Hush, angel. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Are you really Erik? How do I know that you are really alive, that I have not invented you to ease my pain and calm my screaming soul?"

Taking advantage of his proximity to her, Erik took the ringed hand of his angel and twirled her about so her back was again pressed against his chest. He leaned over and kissed her waiting lips, just as they had done in his dreams, in the Phantom's Opera. And then he moved and kissed her neck, whispering to her "How could you ever doubt?" She wanted all of the buttons on her dress to fall off, she wanted to be that much closer to him. She wanted him to sing to her, she wanted, she wanted, she wanted his world…

But he was teasing her again. He twirled her away from him and returned to his desk. "Christine, if I asked you to sing for me, would you?" She opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off. "Not now Christine. Our music is for the stars to hear. Can you come to this office tomorrow night, at ten o'clock?"

"Yes." She wasn't sure if this was true. She wanted to be there, but how would she escape Raoul's house arrest? Ten o'clock was awfully late to be visiting her father's grave, much too late to be out alone. She'd have to find an excuse…_Meg._ "Yes," she repeated.

"Then you must leave. Your fiancé will be waiting for you," he said, not rising from his place behind the desk.

"Won't you--" she asked as she reached the door. She turned to see his face, the face which he had hidden again under stage make-up. Was he perhaps just performing for her again? Was this another little opera inside his mind? In hers? "Won't you kiss me before I leave?"

"No Christine. Don't you think you've had enough kissing for one day?" he spun his chair away from her and she left.


	3. Pars Tres

Pars Tres

Christine was stirring her half eaten, half uneaten breakfast around her plate, trying to work out enough of an apetite to fork the rest of her eggs down her throat. Her anxiety replaced her hunger this morning, but man can not live on anxiety alone. _Man can not live with anything alone. Man can not live with himself alone..._ She thought of Erik again and knew that he would chide her if she did not eat anything. An organ concerto was pouring into the dining room from the parlor-- Raoul's feeble attempt to include himself in her world. He had left early this morning, before Christine had even sat down for breakfast, to clean up some more affairs at the bank concerning his investments in the now devastated Opera Populaire. She would have the morning to herself, a morning that would drag on so slowly that she could feel the weight of every second on her weak shoulders.

Christine tried to busy herself with some meaningless craft or another-- embroidery, crochet, drawing. It is funny the way some people can be so gifted in some fields but completely incompetent in others. She washed the charcoal from her hands, trying hard not to wonder whether Erik's drawings had been ruined by the mob after his escape. She hoped Raoul never saw them, she hoped he would never enter further into the triangle. Once she had pricked her fingers three times in an attempt at sewing, Christine gave up and retired to her bedroom. It was already two in the afternoon. _Eight hours until I see him again…_

Her hands felt like those belonging to the porcelain figures which decorated her shelves, heavy and delicate at the same time, as she reached inside one of her drawers and removed a sheet of writing paper. She knew that Raoul would be back in an hour or so, and that she would much rather take the time to craft her lies outside his gaze. So much was changing about her, so much of her was transforming as to make her former innocence almost irretrievable from beneath the collapsed building which was her mind. Raoul had changed too. He had been smug before, proud of his means and his happy situation, but the added triumph over Erik beneath the Opera House had given his gait a pompous bounce which Christine could already feel stabbing at her like a wasp of annoyance. How she wished to be alone, so she could live inside her mind…

She scrawled a hasty 'I love you' and signed the note. She grabbed her muffler, though she most likely would not need it, and left without another thought. True, she still had some time before her rendezvous, so she decided to make her note good and visit Meg Giry at her flat across town. With all of the publicity, Madame Giry had made off much better than some of the other staff at the Opera Populaire, allowing her the luxury of her own apartment. The journey was brief and soon Christine was facing the glowing eyes of a blondish girl who, though she was senior to Christine by several months, looked a great deal younger and brighter.

"Oh Christine! How good it is to see you. Has it been two weeks since we last met? I'll take your cloak." Meg led her friend inside and they began to walk toward the tea room. Christine was preparing an excuse for not eating with her friend, but was spared this exercise when she was struck, as though an electric current had just surged through her, by an enormous object opposite her. She was staring back into her own two eyes and the eyes of Meg beside her, looking incredulous. _The mirror… is this a sign from you my friend? Have you returned to me in this coincidence?_

"Christine, what's the matter? You look peaky indeed, come take tea with me."

"I'm sorry Meg," Christine said absently, still staring at the great looking glass. She wondered whether she could reach through the mirror and find her way back to that magical cavern of music and candlelight, but knew that even if this mirror were a portal to that world, the first experience of being led away to that underground heaven would be tainted by more recent regrets. "Meg, I just wanted to stop in and say 'hello', but now I must go." She retrieved her cloak from the coat tree and in a swirl of wool she was again out in the busy streets of Paris.

That was not good, that did not go the way she had hoped. But it was as though she was channeling his spirit, as though he had called to her and she was now possessed with such a madness that she immediately began to make her way to the apartment above the office of Dr. Rubis. He wanted her to sing for him, but could she do this? Singing with another man seemed to be adultery in itself, but in some ways her marriage to Raoul had been an adultery of its own sort; half of her mind, half of her song belonged to Erik.

It was eight o'clock when Christine reached the office.

But she knocked anyway. To her surprise, the door edged open and Christine was staring into the new lair of the Phantom of the Opera.

The room was a pale shadowy blue and the only notable furniture was the piano and a loveseat obviously salvaged from the wreckage of the Populaire sitting room-- pink plush and mahogany. A small wash closet was concealed behind a narrow door and a third door most likely closed away the bedroom. Christine wondered whether it actually was a bedroom, as Erik had always chosen to rest in a coffin. _Or not to sleep at all._

"I was wondering when you would come," a voice said from behind the door. _Erik's voice_. "Please just give me a few minutes more, and sit down." Christine did as she was told, and two minutes passed by as she stared at the doorknob, waiting for it to rattle. _What would happen if I just went in, if I found him half dressed, what would I do? Would he be angry or pleased? Does he expect me to burst in there? Oh confound it all!_ Christine got up slowly and began to turn the knob when she felt a man's hand upon her shoulder. Erik had been throwing his voice again.

"Oh Erik!" He was much further away than she had expected, than she had hoped. Why did he tempt her so? He handed her a glass of fine wine and led her toward the piano.

"Can you sing for me?" Somehow he was managing to repress his excitement, his anxiety. An A minor chord hung on the air before the two joined together in one of the later songs of _Don Juan Triumphant_, the ballad in act two.

In my mind I hear you sighing

Love melodies you are singing

If only I could hold you here

With me, forever and ever.

If I were not so lost and frightened

Frightened of this world above

I would join you in your hell

And make it heaven for we too.

And then we could be one,

Then I would be found

Our hearts…

Christine, captured by his melodies, ceased to sing, having lost her voice in ecstasy and astonishment. Erik played a few more bars and then turned to her, as though asking why her voice was gone. "Cat got your tongue?"

"I've swallowed my voice."

"Well, we'll have to find it, won't we?" Erik did not even stand up, but by simply reaching for Christine's slender neck he pulled her face towards his own and kissed her, trying to draw her song out through her mouth. It took only a few moments before the melodies seemed to be suffusing through the pores on her skin, his love the very medicine she needed to slake her thirst for music. But now that he had begun this, they could not go back. Christine sat down in his lap and leaned against the piano, creating a great clang of clashing notes, the devil's interval. Erik began to work over a new melody with his right hand, kneading her hair with his left. What a picture this would paint, an image lost to no mind who has ever felt a rush before the plunge. They had only a few hours left before the plunge.

She broke away for a second and whispered to him, "How long shall we too wait before we're one?"

"Christine, this is not an opera. This is real for me. Is it real for you?" His eyes were too close to focus in on properly, but Christine tried to stare back at him. She didn't know whether it was real. Did she even care? At this moment all she wanted was to throw her life away for his music, and if she had to take her body down with her, then so be it. "Christine, I will not take advantage of you in this way. You are not yourself, you are nearly mad. Look at how you shake."

"I shake for you. I shake under your touch. Your power climbs through my ears and teaches my soul to dance, as though you were a snake charmer. What am I to do? You know that the passion you seek rises up from my guts only when you speak to me, so when you find the jewels why do you not seize them?" Christine was panting from her speech, exhilarated by the moment. She wanted to remember all of this. She wanted to remember what his hair felt like, what his flesh smelled like, the look of her saliva on his lips, the exact color of his eyes. She wanted to remember what his legs felt like beneath her, the coarseness of his fingertips from tuning the piano.

"Christine, it is nearly eleven. You must go now."

"No," Christine said, but even as she said it she knew that she was not herself. This was not her subservient girlish tone, her light acceptance of what is. She actually stood up for herself. "No, I want to stay with you."

"You had your opportunity to stay, Christine. But now I must beg you to leave before I engage in any further infidelity. I'm leaving the country tomorrow to be wed."

She stared at him.

And then she hit him.

_Engaged to be married? How can he be engaged to be married? _A thousand questions whizzed through her head and all she could think of was how much she wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to be dead, and she wanted to go with him. In Hell, they could be together.

"Now, Christine, I must throw you out." He took her by the hand and led her outside before locking the door. But Christine did not leave.

"Erik! ERIK! I love you. Erik I need you! ERIK!" She was screaming now, and she knew that it would destroy her voice, that she would be found, that Raoul would know. But if Erik would not take her in, then so be it. "Erik!" She screamed herself hoarse and then she cried and beat at the door until she bled. Hours later, she fell asleep.


	4. Pars Quattor

Pars Quattor

It was early morning, still dark, but Christine's mind snapped awake as though she had never slept at all. _Engaged. ENGAGED?_ _How can that be possible?_ The wind whipped Christine's face as she walked toward the carriage house, insulting her for believing it impossible that Erik should find love anywhere outside her own heart. Could he be lying? _He must be lying. What woman would have him? _She would. Almost.

She climbed into the carriage, still trying to convince herself that it was all for the better, that he would be happier with a wife of his own. Her breathing was thin. She went home and to bed, though she had not eaten, and woke the next morning feeling as though her body were made of stones.

Raoul looked at her as he always looked at her, the way he looked at the pet Italian greyhounds which skittered about their feet, the way he looked at the paintings along the wall and the porcelain in the cabinet—he looked at her with a love and a self-satisfied triumph which was almost disgusting to look at. She hated the way the corner of his lip just barely turned up into that half smirk, the way only two or three of his teeth peeked out from between his thin pink lips to gloat at her. But she loved Raoul, perhaps because she couldn't imagine what her life would turn into if she stopped doing so. In the last weeks of the Populaire's existence, she had clung to Raoul the way she had clung to her innocence. Christine, like Persephone in the Greek myth, had resisted the pull to Hell, but found the absolute power and the haunting beauty of the Underworld impossible to settle. With Hades himself bending and asking for her to be his queen, it is amazing that she managed to cling onto the world above long enough to avoid eating the pomegranate seeds of that dark place. Or had she failed to resist? Had she failed to stay her hunger for passion when she kissed him, thinking that she was only doing him a kindness that she owed him? No. No, she had chained herself to the world of dark music when she fed herself upon his lips, and now he was turning on her and marrying another? _Engaged?_

But Raoul is of concern now. He has noticed that Christine is in a frenzy, that her hair is not tied up and that two of the buttons on her dress were missed in her haste to meet him for breakfast.

"How was Mademoiselle Giry? Did you send her my regards?" He looked up from his paper.

"She was fine. She wishes you well." She was staring intently at the toast she was buttering. He yawned and turned the page. She managed to stifle her own yawn, which rose in her throat and threatened to expose the truth that she had not slept at all.

"Please don't forget, my love, that you have an appointment with that Doctor fellow today."

Her stomach turned over.

"Dearest," she began, putting down her toast, "I'm not feeling at all up to that today. Perhaps tomorrow…or next week?"

If he was suspicious, if he was even concerned, he did not show it. What was it to him if Christine wanted to make some decisions of her own for a change? Sometimes she amazed him and chose which jam she wanted with her crackers all on her own, but more often she just said, "Oh no, dear, you decide." That's the way everything had been with the wedding arrangements. _Oh no, dear, you decide._ He sometimes couldn't believe that Christine had had the courage not only to choose him down by that lake, but also to make a decision at all. But she made up for it in sweetness.

"Of course dear. I was hoping that maybe we two could spend the day together… go to the park or something."

"Yes, that would be nice," she simpered. _Oh Lord, not the bloody park again._

Erik was leaving today, where to she did not know, but where he would be married presumably in one month. That was the custom. _One month_.

So, she went to the park, and it was just as boring and intolerable as she had expected it to be. How was she supposed to tell Raoul that she wasn't going to marry him, that she had met someone else, without getting Erik killed? There was no way.

They were sitting down to dinner that evening when Raoul asked her if she wanted to go to the opera house in Vienna. She said she would love the escape, that it would be quite a treat. She knew that any opportunity for travel would heighten the possibility of running into that man who accepted her embrace and then said he would turn her away forever. Somehow, when she had done it to him it did not seem nearly so despicable.

"Christine, what's wrong?"

"Nothing Raoul. Nothing at all."


	5. Pars Quinque

Pars Quinque

"Look at these truffles! Aren't they just divine? Christine…" he followed her gaze to the buttresses and balconies of a vast gothic structure, the Opera House of Vienna, which towered over the shops and apartments below. What a magnificent building, with arches sweeping round the frame of the entrance and columns adorning its walls—no wonder Christine couldn't keep her eyes off it! "But darling, there is so much here to see. Be patient. We shall go on Thursday."

But three tedious days of shopping out and dining in, dining out and sleeping in passed by before the pair stepped into the foyer of the Opera House. She had taken great care with her appearance this evening, sculpting her chestnut curls about her head and shoulders like a fountain display teeming with ornamental flowers and lavender ribbons, of a silk identical in sheen and color to her gown. She wore no jewelry, rather she hoped to draw attention to the fact that the engagement ring no longer hung near her heart, but instead rested on her hand. A human could live without a hand, but without the pulse which the heart gives to the hand, a human could not live. Yes, that was really her reason—a bit histrionic and under-developed, but symbolic enough for Erik to appreciate her.

After an hour of smoozing and chatting with the few attendants who spoke French, Christine's disappointment was confirmed: Erik would not see her tonight.

She was absolutely right. She and Erik were separated by twenty seven rows and the orchestra, but she could see all the glimmer of his makeup in the torchlight of the stage, she could feel the fire behind his eyes even from this distance, could hear his heartbeat keeping time with the music. It was strange to hear him singing the jolly farce of The Marriage of Figaro, though she did not believe it beyond his scope of performance. The dancing and music were equal to that found in Paris, but the kiss which Erik bestowed upon his leading lady pinched her in the small of the back, made her squirm within her skin. _Look here, look here! I bet that dainty, soulless thing pretending to be his muse doesn't even know what is beneath his mask, what he really is. I'm his muse, _I'm _his soul!_

The moment the applause began to climb Christine grabbed Raoul's hand and dragged him out of the Opera House. She was furious.

"Christine? Are you well?" She was mad with jealousy, which Raoul mistook for the dramatic anger of an obsessed thespian. "I thought the performance was fine. What offended you?" Genuine concern hung from his voice and dripped onto her face as he held her close to him and wiped away her tears. Christine sobbed.

_She's still crying for Erik,_ he thought. _The performance has brought it all back again. What do I have myself in for? If my brother were alive today, he'd remind me again what a fool I am to be marrying a dancer. It's nothing but drama, drama, drama all day long!_

"Oh, churchbells," he whispered to her, stroking her hair. "They'll be chiming for us soon enough."

_Damn your churchbells. I could tell him right now that bells will never chime for us, I could break it right now. I wish they'd cease their racket and let my mind relax. All this noise, noise all the time. How can they even call that music? Well, I'll never use them. And I bet… oh no. It can't be. At this time of night? But of course! My night angel weds at night, and I'm still standing here. No I'm not. I'm running. Look, I have some energy after all. Poor, stupid Raoul… he's not even bothering to chase after me. He probably knows. Well, he can rot for all I care. I never thought I'd be able to run this far. I'm so tired. My dress, oh what the dickens! What are rocks doing in the middle of the walk? I could have tripped. Or died._

_This must be the church. The bells have stopped. Thank God. I wish I had a mirror; I bet I look like a regular street woman, with my dress all caked in dust and my hair everywhere. But… oh, blast this is all wrong. Or is it all right? Well here goes…_

Christine pushed open the ancient wooden door and stepped inside a chapel, still candlelit from the Vespers service. She heard the rush of air behind her as she paused in the hall to catch her breath, and the candles dimmed one at a time until only two remained lighting the altar at the front of the Church.


	6. Finis

Finis

"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do."

She could see him silhouetted before her, distant and yet close enough to smell, to feel the very vibrations of his vocal chords against her skin.

"And do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

Silence.

_Damn it, where is that little wretch? _Christine tried to edge a little closer without moving into the candlelight.

"Well, Christine?"

He was standing right next to her. She didn't know how he had done it, but somehow he had completely cut away the distance between them. _Or did I bring us so close? And now I can hear him breathing…_

"Christine?"

"I do," she whispered. She was not exactly sure to whom she was whispering, whether this was for real, whether she wasn't about to wake up with a damp face and smeared make-up, or if she had hanged herself in the lavatory at the Opera House, but she knew that the answer would always be yes.

Erik didn't wait for the priest to finish the service. He was suddenly before Christine, and, tilting her face towards his—his true face, unpolished by mask or makeup—and kissed her gently on the lips. His lips were whispering to her apologies, serenades, love poems, desires, hopes—she listened to them all, never even pausing to breath as they kissed there in the darkness.

"Erik… I love you."

Raoul never found them. No one asked the two new singers at the Theater in Rome of their past, or their interesting circumstances. They kept little company apart from themselves.

They were past the point of no return, and they never looked back.


End file.
